Braves left-hander Max Fried departed today’s Opening Day start after throwing just 43 pitches over 3 1/3 innings. The club would later announce that he was removed with left hamstring discomfort. After the game, manager Brian Snitker told reporters, including Mark Bowman of MLB.com, that Fried will likely go on the injured list. Snitker also said Fried has a hamstring strain, per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
To this point, there’s nothing to suggest Fried’s injury is particularly significant. Snitker said that Fried would miss at least one start, per David O’Brien of The Athletic, but would likely go on the injured list. IL stints for pitchers have a minimum stay of 15 days, so it seems that the club is expecting Fried to miss an amount of time that’s roughly in that ballpark.
Though it’s possible his absence may be on the short side, it’s still not ideal for any team to lose its best pitcher on the first game of the season. Fried has been one of the better pitchers in the league over the past few years, coming into today’s action with a career ERA of 3.09, 23.8% strikeout rate, 6.6% walk rate and 52.8% ground ball rate. He’s coming off the best season of his career, as he made 30 starts last year with a 2.48 ERA, getting his walk rate all the way down to 4.4%. He finished second in National League Cy Young voting to Sandy Alcantara.
An injury to a player of Fried’s caliber would be problematic at any time but the rotation has some moving parts at the moment. Spring injuries to Kyle Wright and Michael Soroka, as well as underwhelming performances from Ian Anderson and Bryce Elder, mean that the club is planning to get starts from rookies Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd early in the season. Wright is expected back after a minimum stint on the injured list, but Fried’s absence will give the club an extra rotation hole to patch over for at least one turn in the rotation and perhaps a couple weeks.
Why hasn’t anyone said “Wow” yet?
You just did.
Because “wow” is a tick below idiotic.
Crushing blow to the Braves, It happens to every team. Happened to the Mets. How well is this team prepared for injuries? We’ll see.
I love this board. A person w two accts named after one of the three stooges calling others idiotic. Thx for coming thru, lol.
Happy to accomodate
There is only 1 account with Curly, & mine has been on here for years the other is your troll brother.
By the way, I called the post idiotic, not a particular person.
Nice to give yourself a thumbs up @Sideline
Your time on this site is limited to your intelligence, zero
What about Owch?
My guess is this isn’t a big deal. If you watched the game he was still walking reasonably well. I’m sure it tightened up on him and will be sore a few days but my guess is he’ll miss one turn in the rotation and be good as new. This isn’t the type of thing I would expect to be problematic after he recovers from the initially few days of soreness he’ll have from it tightening today.
It depends how The Braves manage the injury and how fast they decide to bring him back. If they rush him he’s doomed. I pulled my bicept and felt off for 3 months. Rest is the only thing that will help. My guess is 10-15 days off won’t be enough.
Not a chance it takes 15 days off.
It will be more like 5 days no activity, 2-3 days lightly exercising to make sure it’s ok.
One week from now he’ll be good as new. Like I said, he’ll probably miss a turn and that’s about it.
If it took you 3 months to recover from straining your bicep you must be like 70 years old with that time line.
Also there’s a difference between injured and feeling slightly off. Rarely does anything feel 100%. My guess is that you just don’t know the difference between an actual injury and discomfort from tweaks and pains.
Exactly, teams are kinda stupid sometimes. 15 days would fully repair any damage, won’t be suprised if his stuff is diminished after being rushed back or he sees another trip to the DL in June or September.
Why not take those 15 days and make sure he is right for the season? There is still 161 left and this is a marathon. I would agree with you if it was near the postseason.
At least the Braves won on opening day for the first time in 1oo years.
That means they’ll lose the division. It’s Bizarro World.
@Von, it’s the back up plan that will win the day…more to come
@VonPurpleHayes
Not really Bizarro World. Tanner Scott still sucks and can’t hold games.
Stay tuned about the Marlins bullpen.
Braves will win the division.
Harper out.
Verlander out.
Fried out.
Oh yeah, and the Marlins bullpen is healthy.
Braves win the division because Fried is out while the Mets and Phillies have key pieces out, and while the bane of the Marlins team remains healthy. Everyone is hurt by these developments, so the Braves win.
Fried will miss one start, Verlander will also miss a couple of starts at most. But the Fish will be the Fish all season long.
Well, that’s why I pick the Braves to win.
And yes, the Marlins are already done. I saw the defensive problems now added to the continuously garbage bullpen, and the offense still struggling. At least this will be Kim Ng’s final season…and many of the guys she brought in (except the bad contacts).
Ng isn’t going anywhere.
I honestly couldn’t remember the last time the braves won opening day.
It has been something like 5-6 years since the braves won on opening day. Earliest they have been over 500 in that stretch for sure which lead to a bit of a wry chuckle from me.
Now they are even with the Mets.. loss of ace for ace
As a braves fan, not even close, the Mets lost Verlander, Quintana, Diaz, and Nimmo, while the braves just lost fried for a mild injury and Raisel Iglesias.
Mets lost Nimmo? Please try to pay attention
Fried gets hurt at least once a year. Nothing new.
My GA lottery goat bingo card didn’t have Luetge as the winning pitcher.
One has to wonder how much Soroka’s injury played into Fried’s decision making in this process.
Considering he had the exact same injury in ‘21 and missed about 3 weeks I’m guessing that’s where he’s getting his perspective.
Concerning but it doesn’t sound serious.
Paxi Mad
He’s been durable generally, but come on, tweekin a hammy covering first? It’s not a 200 meter sprint. He’s probably frustrated enough for all of us. Last year he concussed himself making a play on a groundball toward first base as well. Wouldn’t be the first guy to be allergic to the first base bag.
I think we must cancel the season, guys getting hurt on opening day. Let’s just start the playoffs and shorten the season so there are no injuries ever. First the WBC, then spring training now opening day. This is just not acceptable.
Let’s just shorten the games to 7 innings bc nobody wants to hear you horrible rendition of take me out to the ball game.
Temperature was in the 40’s. Cold weather tends to tighten muscles, making this type of injury more likely.
I’ll never understand the decision making to play all spring training games in warm climates and then boom, go right to playing in cold weather.
I’ve seen football players play in sub freezing temps many many times and I can’t say I’ve seen any of them go on the injured list with a pulled hammy. Maybe baseball just needs better trainers.
First of all, football is a sport the gradually has decreasing temps over the span of 5 months, not a 30 to 40 degree drop in 2 days. Second, yes, football players pull hammys in cold weather also.
Ever been in New England or in Minnesota during the Fall? It can swing back and forth from 60 plus to under 30 for weeks before winter takes over, so yes, Football players do experience rapid drops in temp. I guess it takes a lot more than a pulled hammy or oblique or teres major to keep them off the field on Sundays.
They’re all concussed. They don’t know better.
Concussion protocol…
“See if your eyes can follow my finger.”
“What’s a finger?”
“He’s good!”
Football players get hamstring injuries all the time. And sometimes miss games due to them.
Football players don’t have fully guaranteed contracts.
But football players don’t tend to go from very warm, humid climates for their training to very cold weather for a game early.
Fried hamstring or green eggs and ham?
Fried didn’t look as if he was limping badly. I’d imagine that since it was so early in the season that the braves are just being overly cautious. I don’t blame them at all. I’d be shocked if Fried missed more than one start at the absolute most.
Braves are having a heck of a time keeping pitchers healthy this year. Unbelievably